THR's awards analyst recaps the most important awards-related news of the past week and offers his latest category-by-category assessment of the Oscar race.

Every Sunday through the Oscars on Feb. 24, The Hollywood Reporter's awards analyst Scott Feinberg will release a new "Feinberg Forecast," a post in which he recaps the most noteworthy awards-related news of the past week and shares his latest assessment of the standings in each of the major awards categories. (For more information about Feinberg and how he arrives at his projections, see the bottom of this post.)

NOTEWORTHY DEVELOPMENTS SINCE LAST WEEK'S FORECAST:

Lionsgate's Twilight: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2, the final installment in the lucrative franchise, dominatedat the box-office this weekend, grossing $141.3 million -- nearly $100 million ahead of its closest competitor, Sony's latest James Bond film Skyfall, which grossed $41.5 million, an impressive second-weekend figure for a film that tons of people caught in its first weekend. Meanwhile, DreamWorks' Lincoln, which had opened in just 11 theaters last weekend, expanded to 1,764 more this weekend and claimed third place with a haul of $21 million. And The Weinstein Co.'s Silver Linings Playbook edged out Focus Features' Anna Karenina in the battle of small-ish films opening in just 16 theaters, with both delivering modest returns: The former, which originally was set to open wide over the Thanksgiving weekend but now will be platformed, took in $458,000 ($28,625 per theater), whereas the latter took in $315,000 ($19,688 per theater).

President Barack Obama, a big Abraham Lincoln buff,invitedthe key creative team behind the new film Lincoln -- director Steven Spielberg, producer Kathleen Kennedy, screenwriter Tony Kushner, actors Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, and Gloria Reuben, and DreamWorks co-chair and CEO Stacey Snider -- to the White House for a special screening of the film on Nov. 15. At another event later that night, Kushner said that he thought that the president "really liked it" and that he and his whole entourage "stood up" to applaud when it ended.

The Producers Guild of Americaannouncedthat Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, co-chairs of Working Title Films and producers of this year's Oscar hopefuls Anna Karenina and Les Miserables, will receive the 2013 David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures, the PGA's highest honor for film producers, at the 24th PGA Awards on Jan. 26. The British duo also received the Hollywood Producer Award at last month's Hollywood Film Awards, the first awards show of the season.

The team behind the muckraking best documentary feature Oscar hopeful The Central Park Five, which played at virtually every stop on this year's fall festival circuit, enjoyed a unique and special evening on Nov. 15. After the film played as the closing-night film for the DOC NYC fest, all five of its subjects -- including even Antron McCray, who wouldn't even appear on camera in the film in order to preserve his privacy -- gathered for an emotional Q&A, marking their first public reunion since their arraignment in 1990.

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced that Rick Baker, the legendary makeup artist who seven Oscars to his name and is a best makeup Oscar contender this year for Men in Black 3, will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Nov. 30. MiB director Barry Sonnenfeld will be among those speaking at the ceremony.

The Santa Barbara International Film Fest announcedthat its 28th edition, which will run from Jan. 24 through Feb. 3, will include a presentation of its highest honor, the Modern Master Award, to best director and best actor Oscar hopeful Ben Affleck (Argo) on Jan. 26. Festival director Roger Durling said in a statement: "Affleck has come into his own as a multidimensional artist with Argo. He embodies what the Modern Master Award is all about, and we're thrilled to honor him this year." The award, was established in 1995 and intended for "an individual who has enriched our culture through his/her multi-faceted accomplishments in the motion picture industry," has gone to Michael Douglas, Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Diane Keaton, Sean Penn, Jeff Bridges, Peter Jackson, George Clooney, Will Smith, Cate Blanchett, Clint Eastwood, James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, and Christopher Plummer.

The Palm Springs International Film Festival announced that its 24th edition, which will run from Jan 3. through Jan. 14, will include a presentation of its Spotlight Award to best supporting actress Oscar hopeful Helen Hunt (The Sessions). Previous recipients have included Amy Adams and Jessica Chastain.

20th Century Fox is running a new trailer in all AMC theaters for Life of Pi, its best picture Oscar hopeful, that features footage of the film's director, Ang Lee, explaining why he elected to shoot the film in 3D, and 3D godfather James Cameron, whose company Cameron Pace Group provided Lee with the technology to shoot the film in that format, describing Lee's finished product as a "masterpiece."

Turner Classic Movies revealed that Flight best director Oscar hopeful Robert Zemeckis and best cinematography Oscar hopeful Don Burgess, who have worked together for years, will be the subjects of the third installment of TCM Presents AFI's Master Class -- The Art of Collaboration. The two were filmed discussing their work in front of an audience of AFI Fellows for the special doc, which will premiere at 8 p.m. Jan. 14 on TCM.

Robert De Niro, the legendary and press-shy best supporting actor Oscar hopeful (Silver Linings Playbook), came across very wellin a rare longform interview that he granted to New York Times film critic A.O. Scott for the New York Times Magazine.

It was -- or should have been -- Judd Apatow Week at New York's Museum of Modern Art. The best original screenplay Oscar hopeful (This Is 40) was at MoMA on the evening of Nov. 12 for a chat with Mike Nichols and on Nov. 13 for a special screening of his film that drew everyone from John McEnroe to Robert Kraft, after which Academy members such as Judd Hirsch (Ordinary People) gathered for dinner at Nobu.

On Nov. 14, in a cineplex plastered with posters of the blockbuster Skyfall, best actress Oscar hopeful Rachel Weisz (The Deep Blue Sea), the wife of James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, got to be the center of attention for at least one night. After a screening of the little indie, in which she gives a breathtaking performance, Weisz participated in a SAG Q&A moderated by yours truly and subsequently was feted at a party at a private residence that drew Academy members including Sylvia Miles (Midnight Cowboy).

During the run-up to the Nov. 16 release of the last installment in the Twilight franchise that made her an international celebrity, Kristen Stewart went out of her way to mention, in virtually every interview that she granted, the tiny indie film for which she is now a best supporting actress Oscar hopeful (On the Road). If even a small percentage of Twihards check out On the Road because of Stewart's involvement, it will be a very big deal for IFC Films, which is campaigning hard for Stewart and her male co-stars Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund.

On the afternoon of Nov. 18, during a SAG Q&A moderated by yours truly, best actor Oscar hopeful Liam Neeson (The Grey) spoke candidly -- and for one of the first times in public -- about the 2009 death of his wife Natasha Richardson. In the critically acclaimed film, Neeson plays a man who is driven to the depths of despair by the premature death of his beloved wife but fights on. The actor volunteered, "I'm sure you all know I lost my wife tragically, and this [character] really connected with me in a very special way. … It was like a godsend. That's what it was. I found it very cathartic to do, spiritually and emotionally. … I had no trouble connecting with my character's emotions. My character is me, you know? I'm playing me."

On the evening of Nov. 18, following a weekend of press junketing, Fox Searchlight celebrated Hitchcock with a New York premiere and afterparty at 21 (the legendary restaurant featured in several of his films) that was attended by writer-director Sacha Gervasi and stars Helen Mirren, Jessica Biel, Danny Huston, and James D'Arcy, as well as a plethora of Academy members including Jon Voight (Coming Home).

Also on the evening on Nov. 18, Angelina Jolie hosted a special screening of The Impossible in London to help call attention to the performance of her friend, best supporting actor Oscar hopeful Ewan McGregor, who somehow has never even been nominated for an Oscar. McGregor's co-star Tom Holland, a best actor Oscar hopeful, and several U.K.-based Academy members also were in attendance as Jolie introduced the screening: "Ewan, I have known you for years, and you are one of my favorite actors, and I’ve always loved to watch you, but I watched this and I didn’t recognize you. To say it is one of the best performances of the year really doesn’t give it credit because it doesn’t feel like a performance. It’s from such an honest place and so deeply emotional." Turning to the audience, she added: "You rarely see this emotion from a man onscreen, and I called him later to tell him how much he made me cry. I was crying, and I looked over at Brad [Pitt], and he was crying. It’s just really, really powerful. As an actor, I’m in awe."

The U.S. distribution rights of Baltasar Kormakur's The Deep, Iceland's official submission for Oscar consideration in the best foreign-language film category, have been bought by Focus World, the alternative distribution initiative owned and operated by Focus Features. The film was warmly received when it screened at the Mill Valley and Toronto film festivals and has been a hit at the box office back in Iceland.

Scott Feinberg is one of the film industry's most trusted awards analysts and has one of the world's best track records at forecasting the Oscars, something that he has been doing since 2001. His best showings came in 2006 (when he correctly called 21 of 24 winners) and 2004 (when he correctly called 20 of 24 winners). He was the only pundit to project long-shot best picture nominations for The Reader (2008), The Blind Side (2009) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011).

Scott factors into his projections personal impressions (based on advance screenings at festivals or elsewhere), publicly available information (release dates, genres, talent rosters and teasers/trailers often offer valuable clues), historical considerations (comparing and contrasting how other films with similar pedigrees have resonated with the Academy), precursor awards (some awards groups have better track records than others of correlating with the Academy) and regular conversations with industry insiders (including fellow members of the press, awards strategists, filmmakers and voters).